'Eleki Boom': How The Ventures Became Japan's Favorite American Band
The Ventures, an instrumental rock quartet from Tacoma, Washington, launched their recording career in 1960 with a cover of the jazz instrumental "Walk Don't Run." The track has endured for 65 years as one of surf rock's defining wordless anthems, sampled and referenced across countless films and TV shows.
From Tacoma to Japan: A Connection Beyond Language
In the US during the 1960s, The Ventures managed only two top-10 singles — "Walk Don't Run" and the 1968 theme to Hawaii Five-O — but their full-length albums were a different story, nearly all cracking Billboard's top 50, with the band releasing roughly three albums a year on wildly varied themes: 1961's The Colorful Ventures (every track named after a color) to 1964's sci-fi concept record The Ventures in Space.
In 1962, the band toured Japan as part of a package with Bobby Vee, but budget constraints meant only guitarist Bob Bogle and rhythm guitarist Don Wilson made the trip, performing as a duo. Even with the lineup cut in half, the all-instrumental format sidestepped any language barrier entirely, and the band caught fire with Japanese audiences almost immediately.
The resulting wave became known in Japan as "eleki boom" (エレキブーム), referring to the electric guitar craze it set off. The Ventures overnight became the best-selling American guitar band in the "Land of the Rising Sun," their influence there even surpassing their standing back home. According to Far Out Magazine, bassist and later lead guitarist Nokie Edwards said in a 1996 interview that The Ventures' playing was purely instinctual: "It's just two guitars, a bass, and a set of drums, and that's what we did — we're probably one of the most copied bands there ever was."
Surf Rock's Place in the Timeline
Although The Ventures themselves never had any real connection to surf culture, they were swept up and labeled a "surf band" thanks to the California beach wave driven by acts like The Beach Boys and The Chantays. Bogle admitted in a 1998 interview that before arriving in Los Angeles, they hadn't even heard the term "surf music."
In surf rock history, Dick Dale's 1961 "Let's Go Trippin'" is usually regarded as the genre's true starting point; but The Ventures' "Walk Don't Run" and British band The Shadows' "Apache" both became major hits in the summer of 1960, chronologically ahead of Dale's breakthrough moment.